I am SO glad I joined in these two home challenges: Making Your Home a Haven at Women Living Well and ~ Declutter ~ Beautify ~ Create ~ at Sunflower Schoolhouse.

To be perfectly honest, I desperately NEED both of these challenges. But one of them has gone much better than the other so far.

First, the one I am succeeding at…

Last week, I went out and bought a Cinnamon Streusel candle at Target and I have lit that candle in our kitchen EVERY DAY. It smells SUPER yummy and I have actually remembered to pray for peace in our home when I look at that candle! I also get hungry when I smell it.

This week’s challenge:

Play soft music everyday in your home. Choose worship, classical or another form of peaceful music that the family enjoys. Focus on using peaceful words and maintaining peaceful relationships. Remind your family to avoid seething anger, tattling, criticism or back talk. As the wife/mother, work on gentleness this week.

I already have great music picked out for this – I may have cheated and done a little of this last week too. Overachiever?! Now, the gentleness part may take a little more work…

And now for the harder challenge…

I am officially several weeks behind on this one. By now I should have decluttered the closets and our “master bedroom.” Forget the overachiever status I just mentioned. I have officially F.A.I.L.E.D. in this subject.

But this is my make-up week. Just as soon as I get over this head cold, achy, tired yuckiness, I am kicking it into high gear. And before I leave for Relevant, I will be right on track.

That means several things:

*Clearing unnecessary things out of all closets, especially hall and bedrooms.

*Finding some inexpensive shelving to add to said closets to keep things better organized.

*Doing a major decluttering of my dresser and nightstand. MAJOR.

And that’s just the start. But it IS a start.

Now if I can just get started.

Which leads me to the whole Maximize Your Mornings challenge – which I did well with until the weekend hit. I was up between 6:00 and 6:20 every weekday and before the children every day! I’ll consider that a success.

This week I’m working on my quiet time (yes, I know some of you dread that word, but I do ACTUALLY need it, whatever you call it!) – more focused, more reading, more listening, more open to Him  and His voice in the morning.

And there you go. My post to start the week and attempt to inspire myself.

We’ll see how it works! Here we go…

Have a marvelous Monday!